


Isolation Leads to Heavy Thoughts & Tears.

by RandoFando_Spoonie



Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcoholic Booker | Sebastien le Livre, And finally reaches out for help, Booker does a lot of thinking, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Whump, Crying, Depressed Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Exiled Booker | Sebastien le Livre, Gen, Isolation, Suicidal Thoughts, Whumptober 2020, no.11, no.8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandoFando_Spoonie/pseuds/RandoFando_Spoonie
Summary: Booker is left alone on the beach at the end of the movie, after a night of heavy drinking and poor sleep, he finally does some heavy thinking and reaches out for what he needs.
Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947640
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Isolation Leads to Heavy Thoughts & Tears.

**Author's Note:**

> No. 8: Where Did Everybody Go?: “Don't Say Goodbye” / Abandonment / Isolation  
> No. 11: Psych 101: Defiance / Struggling / Crying

“One hundred years from today they'll meet you here. Till then, you're alone.”

Andy's words wrung in Booker's ears long after he watched the others walk up the stairs and out of his life. One of them, for the last time.

He finished his drink, headed back into the pub and drank until closing time. He wouldn't be hungover in the morning, his body and liver would heal and process the copious amounts of booze and he'd be fine, and far too sober, come the time he woke up.

One hundred years alone... 

He'd barely survived, mentally anyway, the isolation after his first death before the others found him, shivering, frostbitten, and trying to get back to his wife and children. Why had he been spared if not to return to his family? But that had been the worst thing he'd ever done, to them, to himself, ultimately to his new family. 

One hundred years alone...

As if he hadn't been alone for the last two hundred and eight years already. Though that had been a kind of self-imposed isolation if he thought about it hard enough, which he rarely felt inclined to do. His own words to Joe at the lab about him and Nicky always having each other while he and Andy only ever had their grief, but whose fault was that? Andy was right, they'd done a shit job of living... and now.

One hundred year alone... another hundred years alone but these would be truly alone. He'd have to move every few years, try to keep his head down, stay unnoticed in a world where it was harder and harder to hide.

He stumbled back to his hotel, feeling himself already starting to sober up. What a bitch immortality was some days. And what a bastard was fate to take Andy's immortality, to rob her of what made her special, radiant, unlike any other while he lived on, suffered on. It should be him, left to grow old, to weaken and die, not Andy.

He locked the hotel room door behind him after hanging the “do not disturb” sign on the knob and sighing, but death would be a sweet escape would it not? And if he were suddenly be more mortal he knew he would take the easy way out, at least in his mind it would be the easy way out. The way to stop suffering, to not have to atone for all the shit he'd done, the pain he'd caused. 

Sebastien le Livre, forger, soldier, but also and always... coward. Too afraid to look himself in the mirror, to face his past, his mistakes. He shed his clothes except for his boxers and let himself collapse face first onto the bed. Sleep did not come easy, nor was it particularly restful. But it hadn't been for 200 years. He wished he could say he was used to it but did you ever get used to drowning repeatedly in your dreams? Night after night knowing it would never end... and if it did it was because that person had finally not woken back up? Now wasn't that a burden to bear?

He woke with a sour taste in his mouth a mix of the alcohol he'd drank the night before and sea water which wasn't really there. It was late, early, he wasn't sure. It was still dark, he got out of bed, moved to the small fridge every hotel had and opened it. What was in there wasn't enough to get him drunk, not really, but the taste would soothe him, so he grabbed a couple of bottles, stumbled to the balcony and cracked open the bottles that were barely a shot. The first he guzzled, the second he savoured, watching the sky lighten as he sat on the balcony and wallowed.

One hundred years alone... without his family, without those who had tried, so hard, to reach out to him, to include him and what had he done? Feigned interest, pretended to care? He'd allowed himself the barest of surface interactions, allowing the others to think they were friends, were family, were something more than what they were. Andy, he thinks, saw through him, but she was miserable enough without Quỳnh to not say anything to Joe and Nicky.

All we had was our grief. Such hateful words when they didn't have to be true, not really. Joe and Nicky loved him, not as they loved each other, but as a brother, he knew that, he'd seen the devastation his betrayal had wrought when Joe and Nicky had found out about his role in their capture, in Andy's gunshot wound.

God he had been such an idiot, he really had. He lifted a hand to scrub down his face and was stunned to feel tears on his cheeks. How long had he been crying? He wasn't sure, did it matter? He didn't know. He huffed a soft, pathetic laugh at himself, maybe Joe was right, maybe he really was pathetic. God he ached, for the family he'd lost nearly 200 years ago, for the family he'd lost only last night, for a time when he hadn't been miserable.

He'd never been a good man, not really, but he had tried to be a good husband and father, he really had. And then he'd just given up. Maybe, maybe now it was time to try again. Andy was right, they'd done a shit job of living, hadn't he thought that already, he couldn't remember, thought maybe he had. He pushed himself to his feet and into the hotel room again.

He might need to be 'alone' for a hundred years but there was still one person, he hoped, who would help him. Even if they never saw each other face to face, even if all they did was talk on the phone, he could still be a lone, isolated... abandoned. No, not abandoned, they hadn't given up on him, he'd given up on himself.

His hand shook as he dialed, waited and then he relaxed, flopping back onto the bed as the voice he needed came across the line.

“Booker?”

“James?” He let out a sob without realizing it, “I need help.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr: RandoFando-Spoonie
> 
> As always, kudos/comments aren't necessary but appreciated.


End file.
